How (and Why) to Get Overdrive Audios on Your iPod

I transfer all my audiobooks to my iPod instead of listening to them on my phone. Why would I do that? Am I just tragically old and unhip? (Possibly, if I use the word unhip.)

Here’s why I don’t listen to books on my phone

My phone is big. Seriously, who wants to carry that nonsense around when you are trying to work out? Yes, I listen to audiobooks when I work out. iPods are much easier to carry.

My phone’s battery is crap. If I was going to listen to several hours of an audiobook, it would need to lie down and have a recharge when I need it to be doing other things.

Yes, this is ok. It says so on the book info on my library website.

So how do you transfer them? Audible makes it easy but Overdrive is obnoxious.

1. Download to the Overdrive Media Console on your computer.

2. Select Transfer on the top menu. Follow the instructions on the pop up menu to transfer all the files. This is a slow process. Give it at least 10 minutes. Go do something else while this is happening.

3. The files are imported as Music and not Audiobooks. Find them in your music library and hover your cursor next to the name. When 3 dots appear click on it to bring up this menu. Select Get Info.

4. Choose Options on the top menu.

5. Change the file type from Music to Audiobook for each file. Make sure that the Remember playback position is checked so it doesn’t start each file from the beginning every time you stop and start.

There you go. Audiobooks on your iPod so you can save your precious phone battery time for other things.